Jacob David Sudol(b. Des Moines, Iowa 1980) writes intimate compositions that explore enigmatic phenomena and the inner nature of how we perceive sound. He recently finished his M.Mus. at McGill University and currently resides in La Jolla, CA where he is working towards a Ph.D. in composition at the University of California at San Diego with Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, Philippe Manoury, and Rand Steiger.

Over the last five years some of Jacob's mentors in composition have included John Rea, Denys Bouliane, Philippe Leroux, Sean Ferguson, Dan Asia, and Craig Walsh. He has also participated in master classes with Danish composer Bent Sørensen and German composer Manfred Stahnke.

During 2005-2006, Jacob was the first-ever composer-in-residence for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Denys Bouliane, in collaboration with the McGill Digital Composition Studio. He has also written music for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Contemporary Keyboard Society, percussionist Fernando Rocha, saxophonist Elizabeth Bunt, and clarinetist Krista Martynes. As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, he composed the music for a collaborative dance project with choreographer Hillary Peterson, and he was the principal composer and pianist for El Proyecto de Santa Barbara, a chamber Latin jazz ensemble.

During the 2005 and 2007 Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques and 2006 MusiMars festivals Jacob was an electronic assistant for performances with Court-Circuit, Matt Haimovitz, Sara Laimon, Martin Matalon, Moritz Eggert, Manfred Stahnke, the Caput Ensemble, and the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble. These concerts were broadcast by the CBC and the European Broadcasting Union in over fifty countries throughout the world. He is currently a studio research assistant for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds.

During his free time Jacob takes an active interest in religious phenomenology, cinema, acoustics, literature, poetry, and visual art. As a composer and performer, he always attempts to bring insights from these other fields into his work.

Disclaimer:
All music posted on this blog is posted out of love and the idea that for the truly great music of our time(s) to be known it must first and foremost be heard. If you like what you hear please support the artist by buying the recordings, scores, and/or encouraging the performances of the music in every way possible.

If you are the composer, performer, performing organization, artist or directly represent the composer, performer, performing organization, or artist of anything posted on this website and would like your material removed please contact me and I will happily oblige.

In Rome on the Campo dei Fioribaskets of olives and lemons,cobbles spattered with wineand the wreckage of flowers.Vendors cover the trestleswith rose-pink fish;armfuls of dark grapesheaped on peach-down.

On this same squarethey burned Giordano Bruno.henchmen kindled the pyreclose-pressed by the mob.Before the flames had diedthe taverns were full again,baskets of olives and lemonsagain on the vendors’ shoulders.

I thought of Campo dei Fioriin Warsaw by the sky-carouselone clear spring eveningto the strains of a carnival tune.The bright melody drownedthe salvos from the ghetto wall,and couples were flyinghigh in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burningwould drift dark kites alongand riders on the carouselcaught petals in midair.That same hot windblew open the skirts of the girlsand the crowds were laughingon that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.

Someone will read as moralthat the people of Rome or Warsawhaddle, laugh, make lovehs they pass by matyrs’ pyres.Someone else will readof the passing of things human,of the oblivionborn before the flames have died.

But that day I thought onlyof the loneliness of the dying,of how, when Giordanoclimbed to his burninghe could not findin any human tonguewords for mankind,mankind who live on.

Already they were back at their wineor peddled their white starfish,baskets of olives and lemonsthey had shouldered to the fair,and he already distancedas if centuries had passedwhile they paused just a momentfor his flying in the fire.

Those dying here, the lonelyforgotten by the world,our tongue becomes for themthe language of an ancient planet.until, when all is legendand many years have passed,on a new Campo dei Fiorirage will kindle at a poet’s word.